


now i'm sick in the head (and i think it's my fault)

by Inqukoala



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Catra (She-Ra) Leaves the Horde, Catra (She-Ra)-centric, Dark Glimmer (She-Ra), Emotional Baggage, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, Hurt Adora (She-Ra), Minor Adora/Catra (She-Ra), One Shot, Post-Season/Series 03, Queen Glimmer (She-Ra), Survival, i tried to make it a well written ending but i got bored along the way, started this after season 3 and just now finished it, take it away from me, title from song: bitter (chappel roan)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:54:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23750401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inqukoala/pseuds/Inqukoala
Summary: Post season 3The Horde regroups, the Rebellion falls back, and Catra leaves.She doesn't know where she's going or what she'll do. Her options are limited, but she can't recall a time where she's ever had so much freedom.She wishes she knew what to do with it.
Kudos: 45





	now i'm sick in the head (and i think it's my fault)

**Author's Note:**

> starts after season 3. title is from a song: bitter by chappell roan
> 
> i have no idea what this was supposed to end up as, but i wanted to move on from it so i tried to end it as well as i could. it probably doesnt make much sense after a certain point, but i wanted to put it out anyway
> 
> Wanna support me? --> https://ko-fi.com/inqukoala

Catra destroys reality.

She has everything she could possibly want in the revamped version that sprouts from the portal, bidden by the easy pull of a lever. Adora is by her side once more, and they’re happy and best friends again, and it is a joyous time in Catra’s life because not only is her favorite person here, but Catra is no longer in the shadow of her accomplishments. She, also, is respected and praised and loved by Shadow Weaver, in the same way Adora always was. Not even the other cadets hold anything worse than indifference for her. She has it all here. It is truly the perfect world. But--

Catra destroys reality, and Adora fixes it.

She keeps the idea from Adora for as long as she can, says  _ it’s all in your head _ and  _ are you sure you’re not brain damaged _ until Adora is seeing sudden flashes of bright white consuming the composed world too often to be excused and suffering from frequent headaches and time gaps and reaching peak levels of anxiety. Everything was great before Adora went and ruined it, decimated their second chance without a shred of care for Catra or the life they could’ve had together, all the while looking more determined and certain of herself than Catra has ever seen her. But Catra’s always been a fighter, and so--

Catra destroys reality, and then herself.

* * *

  
  


Sometimes Catra dreams of harmless things, but these occurrences are few and far between. 

Mostly she is visited by the deep wounds of past memories and mistakes that she will not remember come daylight, and is reminded of their presence only by the dark, swirling feelings encompassing her heart that let her body know that, yes, it was endangered, or shocked, or guilty. To her, it is like being drenched in a pond of deja vu and unable to shake free of the thick negativity that mats her fur. 

And other times, sudden flickers will come through Catra’s conscious world, deceptively intangible fluoresces that are both so real and entirely not, all at once. They are there one second and gone the next.

Clawing through air, fishing for a grip as she falls, whispers of  _ nothing bad can really happen as long as we have each other _ looping in her ears on the way down.

The phantom touch of a once powerful woman whom she always desired the love, approval, and admiration of now burning her skin with a hatred stronger than acid.

A quarter of her body becoming a glitchy, obsidian void, tearing into her existence. Vengeance that should’ve been sweet is instead a temporary oblivion.

It is like her eyes are a camera with a shutter speed of 1/100th of a second, but she is incapable of providing a photoset to prove her sanity. The good news, though, is that Catra has no need to prove herself anymore. She used to believe she’d already lost everything, and now she cackles at the irony. She didn’t know how wrong she’d been at the time. 

Because she still had things, back then, even if she couldn’t see it. Scorpia’s trust, Entrapta’s friendship, Adora’s respect. But her irrationally impulsive actions are a risky barter, an all in gamble with the devil, and in the end, she lost. And now that Hordak knows she lied, betrayed Entrapta and himself?

She's getting used to losing.

* * *

The Horde regroups, the Rebellion falls back, and Catra leaves.

She doesn't know where she's going or what she'll do. Her options are limited, but she can't recall a time where she's ever had so much freedom. 

She wishes she knew what to do with it.

* * *

As she travels, the surrounding scenery changes, ubiquitously blurring from grassy green, untouched plains to the charred remains of conquered territories, and Catra comes to a revelation:

She’s won.

In her own twisted way, she has won. She has beaten the system. The same system that held her down for so many years, punished her for rising up, never fully allowing her to prove what she was truly capable of, is now obsolete to her. This is a feeling she has never experienced before -- different even to how she felt back in the Crimson Waste. 

She finds herself riding high upon making this discovery. There is a lightness to her she hasn’t enjoyed for what feels like ages. 

No longer is anything holding her back. And as long as she can avoid the consequences of her past, nothing ever will again.

* * *

She lasts a good six months before that sentiment comes back to bite her in the ass.

Catra has never been a stranger to survival. That said, meandering is beginning to backfire and she doesn't know how many close calls the universe has permitted her to escape from. There are only so many places nestled between the Horde and Rebellion where she is relatively safe, and she has ventured to most of them already. She’s even tried staying in dead lands like Thaymor, but they are always ashy, and cold, and the swatches of muted tones do nothing to assuage the stench of death permeating the air.

So Catra plots herself a path back to the Crimson Waste, where she knows she'll be welcomed. She'll take up the mantle as the fearsome gang leader she once was. She'll expand into new territories, build a stable society for her underlings. She'll drink and have fun, and she definitely won't reminisce about anything or anyone.

* * *

Catra walks, and walks, and walks, and only when her legs begin to resent her weight does she consider stopping for a break. 

The sun is high enough in the sky now that not even the obstacular forestry can shield its bright rays. Catra is still unaccustomed to the sweltering capacity of life outside of her mechanical homeland in the Horde. She is damp with sweat and the sheen of her fur has long been lost to the dirt of the forest floor, and her hair has never been a more disastrous, knotted mess.

It’s just around midday, but she has been trudging steadily on through the ever-changing brush since dawn. At this point, her muscles are aching, screaming for rest, interim relief. She can hear the safety of tall trees calling down to her, when she looks upwards towards the heights. She should just keep on, stop when she arrives at the orange dunes of her destination and not one moment sooner. But Catra is so exhausted--

She gives in.

* * *

Catra hears her footsteps before she even opens her eyes. The heavy heels that dig, followed by the balls of feet pushing adeptly onto toes - it's a pattern she can't easily forget after years and years of listening. Adora's never been very light footed.

She's still tired, and having been interrupted from her sleep, soon to be in a worse mood. But the second Adora struts into sight, sword on her back and Horde badges absent, Catra is only seething and nothing else. Her claws dig into the branch beneath her as she fails to quell her raging emotions.

She wants to jump down in front of her, say  _ hey, Adora _ , tauntingly, furiously, lovingly, steal her sword and initiate a game of chase and play fighting like they had as children. She wants to slow to a stop, have Adora clumsily run into her from behind, knock them to the ground and continue the tussle until Catra kisses her hard and fervently, sword abandoned next to them, forgotten to her palm in favor of pale cheeks. She wants to steal the words from her tongue, render her soft and pliable with her touch, but also to use her back as a nail file and scratch, and scratch, and scratch until there is nothing more than a bloody remnant left for her to be vulnerable to.

Adora’s form disappears between the trees. She goes one direction and Catra goes the other.

* * *

The Crimson Waste is near. Or at least Catra hopes it is.

The Whispering Woods is beginning to drive her a bit crazy with all the circles she’s making in her attempts to navigate. She has passed this particularly gnarly tree two times just today, and no matter how quick she is to develop a mental map of the area, her efforts are always in vain -- the magic spits her out at the forest’s edge and she has no idea where she is or how she ended up in the  _ opposite direction _ of her planned trek. Yesterday, she faced the road to Dryl and immediately pivoted back around to return herself to the leaves. 

She tells herself it's not of guilt, as the greenery swallows her again. That the reason she can't lay eyes upon Entrapta's kingdom is due its lack of advantage to her as a survivor. Which is true, but--

(She's wrong.)

She’s considering settling down in here, now, though, since it seems unlikely she’ll ever have a pleasant exit from the woods. It is, however, not preferable to her in the slightest and that's what lends her the motivation to try one more day.

This is how everything goes wrong.

Catra walks, tired and dehydrated. Catra discovers a stream. Catra sits, and drinks, and finds herself distracted by the water and its sounds.

Catra doesn't hear her coming.

* * *

Brightmoon has certainly outdone themselves. 

Catra can see it as she looks around. What is considered a cell here, spacious, clean, and accommodated with comfortable bedding, is leagues above the quarters of even the highest ranking officers in the Horde. There are no windows for her to look out of and no bars placed to taunt her of freedom during her incarceration. It is more like a bedroom, if you ask Catra. The only give away that her stay is less than willing are the shackles around her wrists and ankles, fettered to the floor. Well, that and the painful bruise on the back of her head from the pommel of a certain sword.

In front of the presumably locked door, a small, embellished tray sits. Prisoner rations are rare in the Horde, used as a last resort for when intel doesn’t come as quickly as the deterioration of the captive, but Catra would not be surprised if Brightmoon was stupid enough to keep their enemies strong and fed for long periods of time. Looking at the contents of the tray, though, she also wonders if the odd, non-gray colors and interesting shapes are meant to be some kind of ploy, tricking their own hostages into murdering themselves with contaminated food so they don’t have to clean up a bloody mess. 

For many hours or for equally as many minutes, Catra stares at the wall across from her. She cannot move, finds herself almost paralyzed in a way she cannot properly convey. Sound is hard to come by within these four walls, but there is a crashing wave in her ears, a nonphysical thing that she cannot identify. Everything is falling out. The world's colors and comprehensiveness are water, sliding down the drain of a bathtub, and she is losing her grip in it, slipping -- 

Drowning.

The doors slam open with a loud banging, startling the moment away with a rush of air to her lungs. Her eyes are wide and her ears are alert, but she is not, and it takes all her focus to fix her mind back to her surroundings. She blinks and blinks and concentrates until everything falls right back into place, just as it was before. It is a mere few seconds, but for Catra the exhaustion felt is equivalent to sprinting several laps at a time.

A Brightmoon guard steps inside. In their left hand is a new tray, in their right, a glittering spear. One of their feet plops into the tray of false food from before, still on the ground from whomever left it there, and they look downwards at their boot in disgust. They replace the old tray with this new one, a bowl of something and a cup of what Catra hopes is water, not that she’ll be testing the potency of their poison any time soon. They make eye contact with each other and there’s a tense moment where she can feel the suffocating aggression the guard holds for her, like the room is an inescapable inferno and the thick smoke in the air is clogging her airway and the only thing separating her from instant death is the steaming concoction in the bowl sitting between them. 

The moment is over almost as soon as it began. The guard removes themselves from the doorway, knuckles noticeably clenched around the shaft of their spear, and Catra is left alone again.

* * *

  
  


She somehow manages to sleep that night.

Despite her thirst and hungry stomach, it is the slumber of Catra’s dreams. It’s funny that it takes only one night in Brightmoon for her to not be victim to her nightmares. The irony is not lost on her. 

Her body feels heavy, like she has been wasting away in this room for months rather than just a week. She has not touched the trays that have been left for her and her skinniness evidences it. A part of her plays with the idea of letting herself thin out of existence, just shrivel up and let dehydration take her away from this place, but another part of Catra wants to be grateful about her position. This is the closest thing to privilege she has come to experience. She aches to buckle down, take on all the accountability from the past, ask for atonement even knowing that the only blessing that will ever be bestowed upon her will be getting snuffed out. But she doesn’t. 

She can’t.

* * *

The princess visits her the following day.

She is flanked by two guards who take over for Catra’s regular watchmen on the outside of the room. This meeting is long overdue, but Catra is given no time to think about why it’s only taking place now. Her cell door swings open and a fiery glare awaits her beyond a changed appearance. The princess looks older. Battleworn and with longer hair; pink and purple iridescent brilliance brushed behind her ears. 

She approaches in her new outfit, cape fluttering behind her and a large, crescent topped staff within her grasp. A dangling earring twinkles at her from just a few feet away, almost mocking as it whirls. She looks more angry than Catra has ever witnessed her before.

Catra puts on a smug smile, chin up to make unwavering eye contact with the princess. She isn’t afraid of this place or these people. There’s little they can do to her that she hasn’t already experienced at least once in her tragedy of a life. She’s survived The Horde and Shadow Weaver; she can undoubtedly withstand anything thrown at her here.

“Hey, Sparkles. Finally had time to grace me with your presence, huh? Tsk, I know you've got a packed schedule, getting your princess ass kicked and all, but--” Her hand cracks across Catra’s face, snapping her head to the side with revered strength. 

“Queen,” she's corrected.

The force of her hand stings on Catra’s cheek and blood spills from her fang-slashed lip into her mouth, a bit dribbling down her chin. Her vision blurs slightly. She allows herself a few breaths to recover from it before sneering. “You even taste like glitter.”

Two hands wrap firmly around her neck and her chains clatter as she is viciously shook. She’s thrown back onto her bunk and the pressure on her windpipe increases. She spits red into her assaulter’s face as black dots enter her vision and her head reels sickeningly as it is slammed into the wall behind her. She gasps for air as blackness swallows up more and more of her sight. 

The queen's right hook breaks her nose and Catra blacks out.

* * *

When she wakes, she wishes she hadn't.

Catra doesn’t understand why she’s in here, cuffed to a cot in Brightmoon’s medical bay with an IV in her hand and a patched up face after the queen just laid waste to her. A voice to the side of her provides the answer.

“Good, you’re awake. Now we can talk.” Her hair is still pulled up in a ponytail with that ridiculous poof and she’s still wearing her Horde soldier uniform, minus the badges that are no longer part of the red fabric. She looks the same, but older. Warier. Less forgiving.

Catra supposes that that’s her fault.

She’s leaning on her sword, sitting in a chair meant for visitors. Chin on the pommel, hands circling the handle, elbows resting on her knees. Catra avoids her eyes. It isn’t hard; her nose is still throbbing from the beating.

“Glimmer was wrong to do this to you.” Catra tears her IV out with her teeth. She doesn’t need to hear this. Adora sighs quietly at her lack of response. “She’s not in the best place right now.”

At this, Catra scoffs. It was funny how princesses were so easily absolved. If only that excuse could reverse the actions they’d all made. Catra locks eyes with Adora. “What do you want from me?”

“What were you doing in Rebellion territory? I mean, you were completely alone, no back up whatsoever. What were you planning?” One of Adora’s hands wave around, a habitual gesture meant to emphasize. Catra never thought she’d witness it again. 

“Adora, I’m not with the--”

The door bursts open. Both of their attention is drawn to the fierce stare of the queen, the archer, and...Shadow Weaver. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Adora stands immediately. “Glimmer, I was just trying to see what information--”

“No, Adora, I explicitly said that you were  _ not _ to be in contact with her.”

“Glimmer--”

“No! I am the queen. I gave you an order.” She points to the exit. “Leave.”

The archer attempts to reason with the queen, but she will not have it. “Both of you leave.  _ Now! _ ”

Adora is distressed and the archer is torn, though they both concede. No one speaks until the door closes behind the two, leaving Catra alone with her abuser and the queen.

“Greetings, your majesty,” Catra drawls. “Back for more? Just couldn’t get enough of me, huh?”

The queen doesn’t bite this time. “What did you tell Adora?”

Catra rolls her eyes, throws her hands up in frustration the best she can while cuffed to the cot. “I didn’t tell her anything, Sparkles. You stormed in here before I could even get a word out.”

Shadow Weaver steps out from behind the queen and takes a closer look at Catra. Then, she points a long finger towards Catra’s absent badges. “My queen, this... _ vagrant _ is no longer part of the Horde.”

“You crawled over to the enemy side the moment you betrayed me, didn’t you?” Catra peers deep beyond the mask. Shadow Weaver’s hair is long and limp, indicative of her break up with the black garnet. 

“What can I say? Even the princesses can recognize a worthy ally.”

“Worthy, my ass. Any power you have, you take from others. Guess that’s not working out too well for you right now.” Shadow Weaver’s eyes narrow and she makes to close in on Catra, but the queen steps in. 

“Both of you shut the fuck up.” The queen pinches the bridge of her nose, frustration apparent. “I need to speak to Catra alone. Shadow Weaver, go busy yourself elsewhere.”

Shadow Weaver is obviously dissatisfied with the order, but complies nonetheless. “Very well, my queen. If you need me, I’ll be tending to my garden.”

“Garden?” Catra laughs. “Ha, prisoner rights.”

* * *

Catra gets moved back into her cell the next day.

The queen gives her the rundown. She will not exit her cell for the foreseeable future, her only visitor will be the queen herself, and she will sustain herself by eating and drinking the given meals this time around.

“Wait, what? I’m not even with the Horde anymore. What’s the point in keeping me in here?” Catra objects. The queen slides the cell door closed and gives a smug smirk. 

“Prisoner rights.”

The queen makes her exit and Catra helplessly watches the guards close the bedroom door after the cell door, hearing the lock turn and seal her fate.

They should have just killed her.


End file.
